35th Kennett Old Timers Baseball Banquet on deck

01/06/2015 02:47PM
● By Steven Hoffman

Mickey Morandini, a former all-star
second baseman with the Philadelphia Phillies, will step to the plate
as the guest speaker at the 35th Kennett Old Timers
Baseball Association banquet on Saturday, Jan. 17. Eight standout
baseball players from the area are also being inducted into the
organization's Hall of Fame that evening.

“We have a good group of guys being
inducted this year,” said Bob Burton, the president of the Kennett
Old Timers Baseball Association. “It's going to be a nice night.”

“As the founder of the Kennett Of the
Kennett Men's Senior Baseball League, I am very proud that seven of
this year's eight inductees played in the league,” said Potter,
himself a member of the Kennett Old Timers Baseball Association Hall
of Fame. “I think that says a lot about the caliber of baseball
that was played over the 13 years that the league has existed.”

By
Potter's count, 29 of the local hall of famers have played for the
Kennett Men's Senior Baseball League at one time or another. Ten
members of the hall of fame played on a 2009 Kennett squad that won
the MSBL Fall Classic National Tournament.

The Kennett Old Timers Baseball
Association was established four decades ago by a group of baseball
enthusiasts that included Howard Lynn, Bat Burton, Donald McKay,
Donnie Davenport, Lou Manfredi, John Moynighan, Gordon Farquhar, and
Joe Husband. The goal was to establish a hall of fame that honors
local standout baseball players with a banquet that recognizes the
accomplishments of the inductees. This mid-winter celebration of the
boys of summer always blends a tribute to local baseball players with
a lively discussion about the grand old game. Through the years, the
Phillies have supported the Kennett Old Timers Baseball Association
and its banquet. Larry Shenk, an executive with the Phillies, has
helped arrange guest speakers for many years. The 2015 banquet is a
return engagement for Morandini, who was also the guest speaker last
January.

Morandini has long been a favorite of
Phillies fans, who would no doubt be pleased if the 2015 team can
duplicate a feat of the 1993 squad that won the National League
pennant just one year after finishing in last place. Morandini was a
member of that 1993 team that won 97 games—and an enduring place in
the hearts of Phillies fans everywhere with a colorful cast of
characters that included Darren Daulton, John Kruk, Curt Schilling,
Dave Hollins, Mitch Williams, and Lenny Dykstra. Morandini played
second base and batted near or at the top of the order for the 1993
team.

Morandini spent nine of his eleven
Major League seasons in a Phillies uniform. He collected 1,222 hits
and posted a batting average of .268 during the course of his career.
On Sept. 20, 1992, Morandini became just the ninth player in Major
League history to turn an unassisted triple play. The avid baseball
fans in attendance at the banquet will have the opportunity to ask
Morandini about the triple play and the memorable 1993 season.

Burton noted that Morandini currently
serves on the Phillies' development staff with the Triple-A Lehigh
Valley IronPigs, and will have plenty of insights to share on the top
prospects in the system.

The evening is also an opportunity to
celebrate some of the finest baseball players in the area. All of
this year's inductees have impressive accomplishments on the baseball
diamond.

Mark Grandizio, a resident of
Glenmoore, grew up playing in the Twin Valley PONY League, where he
earned multiple all-star selections as a second baseman. His teams
won four championships during this time. He played scholastic ice
hockey in Downingtown before graduating from West Chester University
with a degree in history.

Grandizio then played for a total of 27
years in the Coatesville Adult League, where his teams won 20 regular
season titles and 13 league championships. He became a player-manager
and was voted as the Most Valuable Player in the championships twice.

He served two terms as the president of
the Coatesville Adult League and played for six seasons in the
Kennett Men's Senior Baseball League. His team won the league
championship five times. Grandizio has participated in the MSBL Fall
Classic National Tournament since 2001, making six championship
appearances and winning the title in 2009 as the player-manager. He
batted .550 for the week-long tournament. Grandizio was also the
player-manager of the Blue Rocks team that won a national title this
past November. He hit .440 in that tournament.

Dr. Gerald Green played in the
Brandywine Little League in Wilmington, Del. and the Nor-Del
organization in Claymont, Del. before becoming a standout on the
Concord High School team. In his junior and senior seasons, Green
played on the Delaware State Championship-winning squads. He earned
an invitation to try out for the Cincinnati Reds organization after
his senior season in high school. He went on to play one year of
baseball at Temple University.

Later, Green was a member of teams that
achieved a great deal of success in the Kennett and Coatesville Adult
Leagues. He was voted a tournament MVP with the Kennett Blue Rocks in
1997. In 2000, he and Grandizio shared the League MVP Award. He has
been a member of the teams that have traveled to Florida for the MSBL
Fall Classic National Baseball Tournament, including those squads
that won championships in 2009 and 2014. The Honey Brook resident
works as a periodontist in Lancaster.

Jeffrey Allen Greene, Sr. started his
playing career with the Avon Grove Little League. He made the
all-star team as a third baseman. He hit his first home run as a
nine-year-old, and belted four as a ten-year-old and five more as an
11-year-old. As he advanced through Little League, his team won 30
straight games over two seasons at one point. He had 45 hits,
including 18 homers, and 61 RBIs, and won nine games as a starting
pitcher in his team's undefeated season.

Greene attended Avon Grove High School
and made the varsity baseball, soccer, and basketball teams. In his
first at-bat in high school, he hit a three-run homer. He finished
his freshman season with a .353 batting average and was 17-for-17 in
stolen base attempts. From 1981 to 1984, he was a First Team
All-League baseball player. The 1983 team won the district
championship. Greene was also listed in the Who's Who in American
Baseball. He later played shortstop for Lincoln University, where he
hit .511 and earned the NAIA Silver Slugger Award, and Cecil College,
where he hit .412. He earned tryouts with the Pirates, Royals,
Yankees, Tigers, Astros, Reds, and Phillies.

Greene started playing in the West
Chester Adult League with his brothers, before moving on to a team in
Centre County. His teams have won seven championships, and he has
picked up five MVP awards. He coached the freshman baseball program
at Cheltenham High School for three years. He lives in Bellefonte,
Pa. and is a food service technician at Penn State University. He
said that his most memorable moment in baseball came in 2008 when he
played alongside his son for the first time and they hit back-to-back
home runs.

John Kochmansky is the head baseball
coach of East Stroudsburg University. After a distinguished high
school career, Kochmansky graduated from the University of Delaware
in 1988. He was team MVP in 1988 and was also a first-team
all-conference selection. He was a career .368 hitter at the
University of Delaware and had 224 career hits, earning him a spot on
the prestigious 200-hit club.

Kochmansky went on to coach at East
Stroudsburg University, where he has compiled a 192-145-1 record
(.570 winning percentage) over 7 seasons. Under his direction, the
East Stroudsburg University baseball squad has an impressive list of
accomplishments. In 2013, his team won the PSAC Championship for the
first time since 1971. The squad also earned berths in the NCAA
Tournament in 2011 and 2013, and placed third in the Atlantic Region
in 2011. That same year, the team had its first national ranking in
school history. The team won 11 straight games in 2010, had its
longest undefeated start at 10-0 in 2011, and won a school record 34
games in 2013.

David Levan, Jr., a resident of
Coatesville, didn't start playing organized baseball until he was 13,
but he was still able to earn a full athletic scholarship to Temple
University for baseball by the time he graduated from high school.
Levan has played baseball each summer since he started in 1978.

He played high school baseball at
Coatesville and American Legion ball with the Caln team. At Temple
University, he started out as an outfielder, but became a pitcher in
his sophomore year. He played in the West Chester Adult League and
the Coatesville Twilight League. He earned the Most Valuable Player
Award with the West Chester Adult League in 1991, and the Most
Valuable Pitcher Award in Coatesville in 2010. Levan has also played
in the Kennett Over-30 League, the Delco League, and the Tri-State
Over-50 League. He owns a wholesale plant nursery in the Coatesville
area.

Padric G. “Paddy” Miller, a
resident of Toughkenamon, started playing baseball with the Kaolin
St. Patrick's Little League at the age of five. He was named an
all-star three times before starting to play in Kennett's Babe Ruth
League, where he was also an all-star three times. At Kennett High
School, Miller played for manager Tim Skiles, who is a Kennett Old
Timers Baseball hall of famer. Miller was the team captain his senior
year for a squad that won the league title. That same year, Miller
played for another hall of famer, Crow Mattson.

Miller went on to play for several
senior softball or baseball leagues in the area. He started in the
Kennett Sam Tavoni Softball League, where his team won numerous
championships over the course of two decades. He later played for
several traveling tournament softball teams, playing everywhere from
Port Chester, New York to Fort Lauderdale. He also had the honor of
playing in the Roberto Clemente League, where each team is only
permitted to carry two non-Latino players. His team won the league
title three times.

Miller started playing baseball again
around the age of 33. He joined the Kennett Men's Senior Baseball
League, where he was an all-league selection. He also played with the
Pitman Sox of the Coatesville Adult League.

He briefly stopped playing baseball,
but was called out of “retirement” to play for the Oxford
Modified League, where his team won the league championship two years
in a row and finished as a semifinalist in the Pennsylvania State
Championship.

Miller briefly retired again, but came
out of retirement to play for the Tri-State team in the Men's Senior
Baseball League, where he plays alongside many of his Pitman Sox and
Kennett Blue Rocks teammates. He was a member of the team that
enjoyed a victory in the 2014 MSBL Fall Classic National Tournament.

Paul Sergi, a resident of Middletown,
Del., started playing baseball for the KAU Little League and also
starred in the Babe Ruth League. Although soccer is his first love—he
has played in leagues year-round, he also played baseball for
Elizabethtown College. He was a center fielder and first baseman in
local Men's Senior Baseball Leagues, and also played in a Delaware
semi-pro league.

Sergi works as a district manager for a
major food service company in the Washington, D.C. area for the past
27 years.

Doug Stirling is well known in the
Kennett Square area as a pastor at the Bible Evangelical Church of
Kennett Square, a radio host on the WCHE Morning Magazine, and as a
public servant—he currently serves on the Kennett School Board. But
he also had a distinguished career on the baseball diamond. From 1967
to 1969, he played on the Kennett Community League. From 1970 to
1972, he played for KAU Little League, where his team won the league
championship twice. Stirling was a first baseman and pitcher. He set
a single-game record with nine RBIs, and also tossed his team's first
no-hitter.

In 1973 and 1974, he played as a
pitcher and left fielder on the Babe Ruth League team. Stirling was a
two-time all-star, and was also selected as an Athlete of the Year by
the National Advisory Board of Babe Ruth Baseball, with recognition
at the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
As a player on the Kennett High School team from 1974 to 1977,
Stirling hit .405 as a shortstop. He played second base with an
American Legion team and in 1978 he joined the Coatesville Men's
Twilight League as a third baseman. He played for the West Chester
Adult Baseball League a year later.

Stirling played for various corporate
and church softball teams between 1981 and 1996. He also played for
the Tulsa Senior Men's Baseball League between 1989 and 1996, where
he was a three-time all-star and the all-time league leader in home
runs. He started playing for the Kennett Senior Men's Baseball League
in 1997, and in 2014 he joined the Tri-State Senior Baseball League's
Kennett Cutters, where he plays second base and third base.

Tickets for the event are $35 and can
be purchased at Burton's Barber Shop (105 W. State St. in Kennett
Square) or by calling 610-444-9964. The evening includes a buffet
dinner, a silent auction of baseball memorabilia and other items
donated by local businesses, and a raffle.